


Everybody's Dancing (And I Want to Die)

by themoviesinourdreams



Category: One Direction
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-23 21:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20896442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoviesinourdreams/pseuds/themoviesinourdreams
Summary: Sixteen months after the death of his popstar fiancé, everyone excepts Louis to have already moved on. Too bad he's still stuck in the past, complacent with writing blog entries about Liam's old stories, and pretending that he's doing fine just the way he is.That is until a seventeen year-old boy, a former best friend, and a man with beautiful green eyes teach Louis how to love again.





	1. Chapter 1

Hello everyone!

Senior year is upon us - or just me, probably, - and right now we're reading The Road in AP Lit. I do not recommend it, it's the single most depressing novel I've ever read. To add fire to the flame, in stats we're learning about some obscure math concepts that I'm too stupid to understand, and in euro we're learning about the black death and how it fucking killed everybody. 

I think it's safe to say that everything is pretty depressing right now, so I've decided to write some more fan fiction because that makes me big happy. I've decided not to continue my bachelor au because that was fucking stupid (not that this idea is any better) and I had no clue were that was going.

I'm going to try to update this as often as possible, but I can't promise every day.

I love you all, and I really hope you enjoy this story :).


	2. *insert cool chapter title here*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's the first chapter. some things develop. no harry sorry :((. but he'll be here soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo yo yo what up dogs it's ya girl
> 
> i'm back and not taking myself anymore seriously this time. this is wholly unedited, there will be mistakes. feel free to point them out, because it'll probably correct them.
> 
> yesterday, in english, this boy rhymed joy and boy and we gave him a standing ovation, so that's where I'm at right now. Love you guys. hope you enjoy :))))

From the Diary of A Former Popstar  
January 19, 2011

It’s our first tour in the states. I’ve just turned nineteen. The American Midwest is colder than England, and we’ve just finished an outdoor show in Cleveland Ohio. My hands are numb, and none of us are covered in our post-show sweat. 

I go to warm up in the bus and get ready to hit the town. Not that I can drink in America. Not that there’s anything to do in fucking Cleveland Ohio. More than anything, I want to go home.

The door of the tour bus slams open.

“The fuck…?” This girl can’t be more than fourteen; she’s wearing a tank-top even though it’s below freezing. Her face is coated with poorly applied make-up that is a sad attempt at making her look older, marred by the fact that her teeth are covered with silver bands. 

She’s stronger than she looks, slamming me against the wall of the bus with ease. “Hello Liam,” she purrs, keeping her foot firmly planted on the door of the bus, blocking anyone from entry. 

“Hey kid...uh...do you want an autograph?”

“No, silly boy,” she leans in close enough for me to smell her cupcake perfume; it occurs to me that this girl is probably in middle school. “I want you.”

“Uh, about that,” I pause, trying to think of something, anything, but before I know it, she’s leaning in to kiss me. “Where are your parents?”

The door wrenches open. It’s my tour manager, Oliver, a salt-and-peppered, rugged sort of man of forty-three, and a small production assistant wearing black jeans and a Browns sweatshirt. I don’t know his name.

\----  
Louis is stirred out of his writing by a pounding at his door. It’s his across-the-street neighbor, Alan.  
“Hey baby,” Alan still calls him that, even though they only slept together twice, six months ago. “Listen, Jared got into some trouble at school and I’ve just been called into work -” This isn’t true. Alan works exclusively from home. “And his mom’s away on her honeymoon,” he spits the word out bitterly, “do you think you could pick him up from the principal’s office?”  
Louis wants to say no. He should say no; he has no responsibility for this child he’s only met a handful of times.   
“Sure.”  
\----  
Jared is waiting for him in the pricipal’s office. He is seventeen with fake-black hair, a lip he pierced himself, and everything to prove.   
“Who are you?” The principal asks in a tone that suggests he gives exactly no shits about who Louis is.  
“I’m his neighbor. What happened?”  
“He mouthed off at a teacher. Called her a ‘fucking asshat’ and a ‘right bitch’.”   
Louis looks at Jared, “why?”  
“She was being a right bitch.”   
Louis holds back a laugh and turns to the principal. “They got into an argument about the definition of the word ‘equivicle’.”  
“Were you right?” Louis asks Jared.  
“Hell yeah I was.” This time, Louis doesn’t hold back his laughter. The principal shoots him a disapproving look.  
“Excuse me, Mr. -”  
“Tomlinson.”  
“Mr. Tomlinson, Jared’s continued disrespectful behavoir is getting out of hand, and this is the point for intervention-”  
“Listen, I’m just his neighbor, I don’t really give a shit. Come on, Jared.”

In the car, Jared fiddles with the radio until he finds a pop station playing an old Liam Payne song.   
“Hey,” Jared says, “you dated this guy right?”  
“Yeah,” Louis doesn’t want to talk about it.  
“Whatever happened to him?”  
“He was killed by a drunk driver. We were engaged.”  
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Jared contemplates for a second. “Sophomore I used to tell chicks you guys were my neighbors. None of them believed me.” He laughs at the memory, and fiddles with his lip ring. “Thanks for picking me up.”  
“Just do me a favor, okay?”  
“What?”  
“Don’t call your teacher a bitch anymore, okay.”  
Jared sighs. “Figures.” He leans his head against the leather seat of Louis’s Mercesdes and closes his eyes.

Louis is not a Mercesdes type of person. This occurs to him, as it always does, when he pulls into his driveway. He feels obligated to hold onto his 24th birthday gift, for no reason other than the fact that he misses Liam. In his experience, at least, Mercesdes drivers are obnoxious, employing the attitude that their car is too nice to be wrecked into, and driving with a complete disregard for all traffic laws.

Or maybe that was just Liam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was 444,000 word, that you for your support and feel free to comment (even hate comments are allowed fuck positivity, except actually, my last fic got some really positive comments and they made me all super duper happy)


	3. please please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some more introduction and exposition. I promise Harry will be in the next chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo yo party people, it’s ya girl. I hope you like this chapter, I had a fucking dream about this fan fiction and basically it gave me some ideas. I hope you like it. This is totally unedited, feel free to leave constructive or destructive criticism. <3

From the Diary of a Former Popstar

Febuary 3, 2011

We’ve moved out of the American Midwest (thank god) and down to the southern coast of the United States. We have four shows left here, and the thought of going back to England makes me sick. It’s past three and I can’t sleep at all. We’re supposed to be traveling from New Orleans to Oxford, Missippi tonight, although I have reservations about playing in a state that considers Confederate flags decoration. I climb out of my bunk when I hear the bus pull to a stop at a gas station.

I’m joined inside by the dark haired production assistant. He’s still wearning the Browns hoodie. I wonder if he’s washed it since Ohio. I go to the bathroom, just to wash my hands - I can never get my hands clean enough on the bus. And when I get out, he’s in the same place I was when I left him, staring aimlessly in the cigarette aisle.

“Hey,” I greet. He nods. “Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Are you planning on starting?”

“I don’t know.” He looks up at me, and it’s the first time I’ve ever really seen his face. His eyes are a brilliant blue. 

“We should go before the tour bus-” I catch sight of it pulling away through the gas station window, “leaves us.” I finish half-heartedly. “Fuck.” I put my hands desparately over my pajama pants before I realize that they don’t have pockets, and my phone is lying on the counter in the front room of the bus. We are fucked.

The PA, whose name I should probably learn, looks up at me. “My phone’s on the bus.” He says.

“Mine too.” A beat. “What’s your name?”

“Louis.”

\----

Louis wakes up at eleven, and comes down stairs to find an all-too-familiar teenage occupying his usual seat at the table.  
“Jared,” he says, “shouldn’t you be at school?”  
Jared looks at him, confused. “It’s Saturday.” Louis sighs. He doesn’t even know what month it is. “This is pretty good, mate. Is it all true or did you make some parts up?”   
It takes Louis a minute before he realizes that his laptop is open in front of Jared, and the teen is reading his latest blog post.   
“Why are you reading that?”   
“It’s fucking fascinating, mate,” Louis remembers, vaguely, Alan telling him that Jared plays drums in a heavy metal band.  
“How did you even get in here?”  
“You keep a key under the mat,” Louis looks at him incredulously, and Jared amends, “you lock yourself out a lot, I’ve seen you use it hundreds of times. We’re neighbors, remember?”  
“Why are you here?”  
“Well my new stepdad fucking hates me - he changed the locks at my mom’s house, so now I can’t get in, and being with my father is like a never-ending acid trip.” Louis quirks an eyebrow, and Jared elaborates, “he’s still not over my mother leaving him, even though the divorce was four years ago, and he likes to call her and leave her voicemails of him screaming. He screams a lot actually, but aside from that he doesn’t actually do anything. He likes to cry, and there’s always a lingering odor of feces and blood.” Jared pauses, “do you want me to go on?”  
Louis takes in Jared’s messy hair, his ripped t-shirt, and bare feet. “No, you’re okay. You can hang out here, but I can’t promise it will be any better.” Jared bares his mouthful of perfect teeth.   
“It can’t be any worse. Do you get cable?”  
Louis can’t remember he gets cable or not, because it’s not like he ever watches TV, and Jared tells him there’s only one way to find out. They go to one of the house’s many media rooms - the one with the biggest TV, and, as it happens, Louis does get cable.   
Jared flips to a channel promising an all-day Mad Men marathon, and settles beside Louis to watch. Louis leans back on the leather sectional. Louis never understood Mad Men - who are the men, and why are they so angry? But Liam used to watch this show, and if Louis ignores the black hair, and focuses only at Jared’s profile, he looks a little bit like Liam, if Louis uses a little imagination, and when it comes to Liam, Louis is used to having imagination.  
“I miss you,” Louis whispers, and Jared responds by yelling the f-word at the TV.  
Just like Liam.

\----

“I’m just saying, mate, maybe having this kid around is a good thing.” It’s been a week, and Jared has come over everyday after school. Louis is griping about it to his childhood best friend, who called two hours ago to make sure Louis was still alive, as he hasn’t posted anything on his blog since Saturday.  
It occurs to Louis that he hasn’t spoken to Niall since the funeral, and if the only evidence Niall has of his existence are his blog posts, then maybe Louis’s doing something wrong.  
“I just don’t feel comfortable writing about Liam when someone else is in the house.” Louis laments for the fourteenth time.   
“You know Lou, I always thought your blog was kind of obsessive.”  
“What?”  
“I mean,” Niall lets out a long breath, “you update every single day, most days at least twice, about your deceased boyfri-”  
“Fiance!”  
“Right, sorry, Fiance, but you write about him all the time, even though he died sixteen months ago, and you know, I think it’s preventing you from moving on.”  
“I don’t want to move on.”  
“Lou, I don’t think that’s a healthy attitude.”  
“Oh fuck off, Ni, you’re not the therapist, Zayn is-”  
“Zayn would agree with me.”  
“Well then he can go fuck himself too.” Louis hangs up the phone, but something in the very back of his mind tells him that maybe Niall is right.  
\----  
Jared comes home witha pamphlet that he promptly hands to Louis.  
“Parent-teacher confrences are on Monday.”  
“I’m not your parent.”  
“Yeah, but I want you to come.” Louis lets out a long breath of air. What the fuck is this kid doing to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if Harry will be at the parent rancher conference. No seriously I have no idea what I’m doing. This is 10,000,000 works, it took me fourteen years, you are welcome.


	4. don't lose ur head pls omg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we get some insight into Louis and Liam's relationship. we MEET HARRY. BIG SURPRISE AT CHAPTER END OMG GUYS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo yo yo party people, I'm really sorry it took so long, I don't really have an excuse. i hope you forgive me. i like this chapter harry enters. feel free to leave critiques, criticism, love, hate, indifference, I'm game for anything. i love everyone

September 2015

“I want you to move in with me,” Liam says, for the fourth time tonight. Louis lets out a breath of air.

“I just feel like this is moving way too fast.”

“We’ve been dating for four years,” Louis shoots Liam a skeptic look, “practically,” Liam ticks on, although Louis is pretty sure that their ‘on-again time’ doesn’t is two years and seven months - not that he’s counting, “and everything would be so much more convenient, wouldn’t it?” 

Liam’s not wrong, but it’s been a tumultous four years for their on-again, off-again relationship, and moving in is a big step. Things are nice in the spring, usually, they write Liam’s songs together, they plan his next tour, they practically live together, and are very much in love. But then Liam will go on a summer tour, and Louis won’t come and everything is too hot, especially Liam’s sex with other people, so Louis will call Liam screaming and break everything off, but then in the fall Liam will write a song for Louis begging for forgiveness and Louis will forgive him and they’ll get back together. Then winter time will blow in, and they’ll have Thanksgiving together with their families and Liam will get scared because what is Louis isn’t the one, and what if he’s not ready to settle down or, god forbid, get married, so he’ll give Louis the cold shoulder just like the weather and go have sex with other people. But then their Febuary will roll around, and their anniversary, and Liam will write Louis a song, and Louis will forgive him and by Valentine’s Day everything will be fine again. Wash rinse repeat. Louis is afraid he won’t have anywhere to run to when Liam cheats if he gives up his apartment.

But it’s not convenient to keep paying rent on a cramped apartment an hour and a half away from Liam’s house, when he sleeps here four nights a week anyway. 

“I’ll think aboout it,” Louis says, and he’s rewarded with a hesitant smile.

Now

Jared’s world history teacher is behind the school in the temporary buildings and Louis is bundled up in an old pea coat of Liam’s because he couldn’t find his own, and he wonders when the last time he wore it was.  
Mr. Styles, as his door says, is inside with another parent (not that Louis’s a parent) and Louis waits outside, trying desparetly not to eavesdrop (he finds out the precious little Mikey is a right prick), jumping from foot to foot to keep warm. Liam always went for style over practicality.   
Mr. Styles opens the door to let the blonde woman out, looking incredibly flustered (she looks pissed).  
“Well that was entirely unhelp, Mr. Styles. I’ll be taking up my complaints with the school board, and might I remind you to take this seriously because your job is on the line.”   
She stomps off, and Louis can’t help but call, “Tell Mikey he can shove it up his ass!” after her as she walks away. Mr. Styles looks at him, curiously, surpressing a smile. Mr. Styles has pretty green eyes, and curly hair, and Louis has always been a sucker for green eyes, even though Liam had brown eyes and he feels hot betrayal rising in his gut as he realizes that Liam can’t even compete with Mr. Styles by means of attractiveness.   
“Mr. Styles-”  
“Harry,” he interupts. “Call me Harry.”  
“Harry,” Louis likes the way it sounds on his tongue, “I’m Louis.”  
“Right, right, I met you at open house,” this is untrue because Louis wasn’t at open house, “you’re uh - Simon’s dad, right? I can see where he got his pretty eyes from.”  
Louis laughs, glossing over the fact that Harry has called him pretty. Well, kind of. “I’m no one’s dad.”  
Harry looks thoroughly embarrased. “Right, sorry, uh, then what are you doing here?” He notices then that Louis has begun to shake from the cold, “let’s go inside,” he adds, leading Louis to the seat formerly occupied by Mikey’s mom.  
“I’m Jared’s neighbor. He asked me to come.””  
“Jared...right…” Harry still looks slightly confused, “didn’t you used to date Liam Payne?”  
Louis can’t breathe. He hates this, always has, people have always associated him by his relationship with Liam, ignoring the fact that he is his own complete person all by himself.  
“Yes,” Louis says shortly. “He died.”  
Harry looks embarrased. “I forgot about that. Sorry, that was completely unprofessional of me to ask.”  
“Let’s talk about Jared.”  
“Yes,” Harry smiles, and Louis almost dies when he realizes that the green-eyed man has dimples. “Let’s.”

Someone is banging on Louis’s door. It’s not Jared, because Louis is pretty sure that Jared is currently asleep in the guest room down the hall. Also, Jared has a key now, and feels no need to knock anymore - not that he ever did in the first place. Louis is not expecting any visitors, but he goes to answer the door anyway, praying that it’s not Mormons.  
It’s not Mormons. It’s Niall. Niall, who he hasn’t seen since Liam’s funeral (and before that, who knows?), is standing on Louis’s doorstep with a suitcase in his hand.   
“Zayn cheated on me.”  
“He what?”  
“He cheated, so I told him I was leaving and-” Niall sighs pathetically, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Can I stay here for a while? Please? Two days, at the most.” Louis wonders when his house became a hotel. He hears Jared running down the stairs.   
“Sure,” Jared says, before Louis can even open his mouth. Jared takes Niall’s suitcase out of his hands and leads him to one of the many guest rooms in Louis’s house. Louis shuts the door still wondering what the fuck just happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo this was about half a billion words. trust me, i fucking wrote it. love uuuuu


End file.
